2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide provides lots of advice and materials for Dungeons and Dragons DMs at 384 pages, but there may be nothing in the book that is more condensed than the example adventures. Five adventures appear over four pages — three, actually, if you disregard an introduction to the concept and some ballroom artistry. Compared to the size of a modern D&D campaign, these materials are absolutely minuscule, but the basic aspect is a big part of the issue.
I had a digital copy of 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide for some time now, and over the last few weeks, these example adventures have been calling my name. I never exactly run out of material, with years of experience writing homebrew D&D campaigns and lots of books to consult when I’m not there. However, truly basic official adventures are an unusual offering, and I jumped at the opportunity to test one out when it came along.
D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide 2024 Adventures Are Very Basic
The essentials and very little else
In a strange twist on the usual curse of D&Dit was actually a scheduling issue that caused me to run one of the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide examples of adventures. Last month was a nightmare to line up with my usual group and, of the five players in the campaign, only two managed to stick to their usual schedule this week. Instead of cancelling, I presented the proposal to run the level one adventure, The Fouled Stream, and they both agreed to help determine its merits..
While we could have spent a little time preparing things, I wanted to make this as much of a stress test as possible. While I typically read pre-written material in advance and think about how best to rework it to my needs, I intentionally started running without warming up. My players did the same, taking two of the pre-made level one adventurers from 1980s D&D Beyond D&D cartoon and jumping. They went with Presto the Wizard and Diana the Monk, although the latter was quickly shortened to Diane for the sake of a joke.
The level one adventure in 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide It takes up half a page, so setup is simple. The village of High Ery, a Greyhawk location that receives a paragraph-long description elsewhere in the book, has problems with a polluted river. I ran with the cliffhanger that sees the adventurers leaving the town of Greyhawk to investigate the problem, giving the characters a brief moment to get to know each other and letting them visit a classic tavern before starting their quest.
From there, Presto and Diane followed the pollution upriver, picking up a magical restorative acorn from a helpful Treant along the way. Arriving at a cave, they quickly overcame the Twig Blights outside and narrowly survived a battle with Bullywugs after entering. Presto swallowed the magical acorn and regained five health, so they traveled to the final encounter with a Psychic Gray Ooze and some Stirges.
Little hiccups don’t ruin the fun of Dungeons & Dragons
Sessions don’t have to be perfect
My lack of preparation led to some brief pauses while running things in the cave.mainly to make sure I was following instructions. The book suggests using part of a map in the back for the cave, but I had a brief doubt about what he wanted from me (I’m still not sure about that). The other stumbling point was the fault of the Monster Manual putting the Psychic Gray Ooze information in a sidebar two pages before Gray Ooze actually appears, which also took me a minute to figure out.
Otherwise, everything went well, and roughly halving each encounter to accommodate a level two party led to dangerous odds that Presto and Diane would finally survive. Instead of destroying the brain-like fungus that corrupted the water, Presto threw it into his backpack. Stopping once more at the tavern as the adventure came to an end, Presto rolled a nat 20 to convince the bartender to use the problematic fungus in future breweries. When you free typically noble players from their long-term characters, they become much more willing to cause trouble for the sake of it.
Some preparation or improvisation could definitely get more out of The Fouled Stream, and some additional unique NPCs, additional threats and discoveries in the forest, and an expanded cave with a greater narrative payoff would be a big help. Running it as is, however, generally works fine. Diane’s player summed up the experience well after the session, considering the adventure highly generic, but acknowledging that it was more fun than he expected.
The 2024 Dungeon Master Guide Proves His Point
Anyone can be a dungeon master
With this assessment in mind, I think the adventure example serves its purpose reasonably well. GMs accustomed to heavy improv can sometimes pull off fun sessions without solid materials on hand, but I intentionally avoided going off-script for this test, and it proves that improv experience isn’t necessary to solve something with a basic hook and a few encounters. Doing D&D fun requires very littleand illustrating this principle is one of the best ways to convince people to try being dungeon masters.
There are many resources available to help experienced DMs continue to improve their game, and some material in 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide could help with that. Its biggest improvement over the 2014 edition, however, is how much better it is at leading newcomers to the concept. I’ve been doing this for years, but seeing my players purify the water supply to poison alcohol instead convinced me that an aspiring DM wouldn’t need anything more than 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide to perform your first perfectly decent Dungeons and Dragons adventure.